“Jane Austen's books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.”

“Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it.”

“I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

“If peace had a smell,it would be the smell of a library full of old, leather-bound books.”

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

“If books are not good company, where shall I find it?”

“Yes, take it all around, there is quite a good deal of information in the book. I regret this very much; but really it could not be helped.-from the Prefatory”